Part 18

We might go on and show how this group work was organized in accordance with our two fundamentals, but the purpose of introducing this illustration and the one preceding it was, after all, to show that the principal's responsibility, after deputizing work, ends only when he has shown the deputy the most effective method of doing it.

Besides, we must hasten on to the task of handling the "help." We have seen that the entire FABRIC OF MANAGING rests upon the knack of ORGANIZING; that organizing the work must be preceded by PLANNING; and that planning must be based upon ANALYSIS. And now, having organized, we must learn how to handle the "help"--which is a task met in every job involving managing.

And what job, big or small, does not involve MANAGING?

Handling the "Help"

There used to be a good old golden rule of thumb that was plenty good enough for the good old rule-of-thumb days. It was: If you would be fair, treat all your men alike.

As a matter of fact it wasn't a bad rule in those halcyon days for man wanted then but little here below.

And he got it.

Those were the days when a certain plant of a certain electrical concern was known affectionately among the employees as "Siberia."

With good reason, too, for it was the dreariest, bleakest place in winter you can imagine. And a transfer to it was like nothing so much as a sentence to Siberia.

Well, well, their plant today is as comfortable a place to work in as you'll find anywhere in the country; that concern today sets a high standard of employer-employee relationships; those same workers who, thirty years ago, shivered at the bare thought of pulling on their pants and trekking over the barren wastes to "Siberia," are today comfortably retired on modest pensions which don't do a thing but help keep the wolf from the door.

Yet the management, in those days beyond recall, would have shown you that all men were treated alike.

Perhaps that was the trouble. Anyway, if you asked the management today how to handle "help," dollars to doughnuts the answer would come closer to being: To be fair, TREAT EVERY MAN DIFFERENTLY.

A suggestive statement--significant because it is indicative of tremendous change in the relationships of capital and labor, of employer and employee.

Fifteen years ago a lad graduated from an Eastern university. His folks were poor but proud--as Mr. Alger used to say--but managed to see Phil through. Phil had made a good record in school--and some good friends. Through one of them he got a letter to Mr. H--, the head of an old established firm of stockbrokers--and the letter got him a job.

The job paid $5 a week. Even in those days there wasn't much left over after carfare and lunches had been deducted.

But Phil was "learning the bond business." He wouldn't be worth even $5 a week the first six months. After that, maybe.

He stuck. Graduated from "running the street" to a stool in the stock clerk's cage. Came the New Year and Phil found an extra dollar in his pay envelope. He asked the cashier if there wasn't some mistake. There wasn't.

Two days later he got a job in a factory near his home at $12 a week. Told Mr. H-- he was leaving. Was offered $15 to stay. Wouldn't.

Mr. H-- confessed later that he had let the most promising prospect in years slip through his fingers. All--if you ask us--because it was a fixed policy of the house to treat all alike.

For years it had been doing just exactly that. Each June it took on a new crop of young men to "learn the business." Each young man got $5 a week. No favorites. But nine out of every ten came from prosperous, even wealthy families. That $5 bill was nothing in their young lives. Their families were glad to have them work for nothing, for they were getting an insight into the investment business--and some day, whether they became bond salesmen or just plain manufacturers and solid bankers, that knowledge would be worth its weight in gold.

Phil was the tenth man. Mr. H-- knew well enough that he couldn't get by on $5 a week. But there was the rule. It couldn't be broken.

No, we can't wind up by telling how Phil did well in the pants factory, married the boss's daughter and owns the business today. That would be wandering far from the truth. He couldn't "see" the boss' daughter for one thing--and besides the pants factory wasn't such a much.

No, you'll find Phil today doing a bang-up job in an Ohio plant. It says "General Manager" on his door. And as far as he is concerned, it was the best thing that ever happened when Mr. H-- treated him like all the rest.

Mr. H--, though, is still taking them on, still paying them $5 a week--or maybe it's $10--still treating them all alike. He gets a lot of bright young fellows into the business. But every so often he passes up a chance to get an exceptionally promising boy--because he is fair and treats them all alike. What's a rule for, anyway, except to break? Mr. H-- will never know that it's the exception that proves the rule--particularly when you are dealing with human values.

* * * * *

But more later of the newer viewpoint. For the moment we are talking about handling the "help"--and making it sound as though it were solely the problem of the big employer.

Not so. It is a problem with every one of you in business--unless you do nothing but sit in one spot and do one job from nine to five, five days--we hope--a week.

The editor who wants a manuscript typed; the salesman who must get long distance; the man at the machine who has to get tools from the toolroom; the errand boy with his bundle to carry--all have the same problem. To all of them it is just as important in relation to their own scale of things as it is to the manager of a business with ten or a hundred or a thousand employees. It is the eternal problem of GETTING OTHERS TO COOPERATE.